Google and the New York Times just launched a new trivia game, A Google a Day, that will make its print debut tomorrow morning. The new puzzle will appear right above the New York Times’ legendary crossword puzzle, but with the added twist that unlike in regular trivia games, A Google a Day encourages people to go out and search for the answer online. To ensure that Google’s real-time search feature doesn’t spoil the fun, agoogleaday.com will feature a stripped down version of Google’s regular search engine without any of these additional features.

The answers to each question will be revealed on the site and in the paper the day after they first run online. The questions will get harder as the week progresses – just like the regular New York Times Crossword puzzle.

It’s Not Just About Fun and Games

Clearly, though, Google has a secondary reason for running this game, as it will also highlight the search queries that lead to the answers. It will obviously profit from the daily marketing in the New York Times – and the fact that you could perform all of these searches with the help of Microsoft’s Bing will likely not be highlighted anywhere in the Times.

In addition to this, though, the game will also highlight Google’s functionality and usefulness for finding the answers to hard questions and train searchers (and especially those who still read the New York Times on paper) in using Google for complex queries and in utilizing all the additional features that Google offers in its sidebar.

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Frederic Lardinois founded SiliconFilter in 2011. Before starting this site, he wrote about 1,500 articles for ReadWriteWeb. His areas of interest are consumer web and mobile apps, as well as Internet-connected devices like cars, smart sensors and toasters.
You can reach him at [email protected]